Harry Knows
by DoctorDan
Summary: Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?  Harry knows.  Dumbledore dropped Harry off on the Dursley's doorstep, but Doctor Johnathan Crane was watching.  Just a series of drabbles about a truly Evil Harry.  HHr pairing.
1. Harry and the Dursleys Attend a Lecture

**Harry Knows #1 - Harry and the Dursleys Attend a Lecture**

**or**

**"Practical Anatomy 101"**

_AN: I didn't want to get super-technical or bore the casual reader with medical minutiae, so the description of the dissection scene is very basic, and more geared towards the "Horror" aspect as opposed to the "Medical" side of things._

Harry Potter loved his father; he always gave such _interesting _lectures. Oh, he was well aware of the fact that he was adopted. Not legally, of course - what messed-up government agency would allow Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka "The Scarecrow", to have legal custody of a child?

John Crane never disguised who and what he was from Harry. He'd explained that by the standards of modern society, he was a madman, a sociopathic criminal who'd used his medical training in ways that would turn the stomachs of the hardest, most jaded murders.

Harry knew this, and he understood why he'd been told. Not to frighten him or in some twisted attempt to 'atone' or warn Harry away from such a path...but rather to prepare Harry for the day when he, too, would forge his own path perpendicular to the morals of society.

Today was Harry's tenth birthday. Jonathan Crane thought Harry was ready.

Harry knew he was.

"Now, Harry," his Father was saying, holding a scalpel up to the light and examining the incredibly sharp edge with a practiced eye, "The first thing you need to understand about a dissection is that you must always treat the subject with respect." The tall, gaunt man's baby-blue eyes blinked slowly behind his spectacles. "I can't tell you how many potentially excellent doctors I've seen removed from the medical programme because they treated their 'patients' lightly or mockingly. Medicine is a serious business, and while humour can and does have its place in the field, now is not the time nor the place."

"Yes, Father."

"Harry..."

"I mean, yes, Doctor Crane." Behind the blue surgical mask, the older man's lips curved into a tight smile.

"Much better. Remember, right now I'm your attending, not your parent."

"Yes, Doctor Crane." Harry turned to his 'patient'. His green eyes shone with excitement, even as he solemnly asked, "And how are you doing today, Mr. Dursley?"

Vernon would have roared and throttled the boy, were he able. But the Sarapin-based cocktail administered in the back of his neck precisely in a certain bundle of nerves had rendered him unable to muster the strength to raise his arms. The straps on the table would stop him even if he could. All he could do was stare wildly into those green eyes.

_HER _eyes. Oh, how he hated those eyes - he'd hated them when he'd seen her last, he'd hated them when he saw them on the boy earlier this evening, and he hated them - and was terrified by them - even now as he stared into them, helplessly listening to their owner casually make planes to butcher him.

Dissection was normally performed on corpses donated to the medical field, Dr. Crane had told him, but as no medical facility would allow him entrance, he was reduced to procuring his own subjects.

"Always engage your patient in casual conversation, Harry," the not-so-good Doctor urged. "It builds interpersonal skills." Harry paused and looked at the overweight man, and then back at his father.

"Doctor Crane, isn't that what led to this situation?"

A pause. "True enough. We'll work on that later. Now," he said, handing his son the scalpel, "make your primary incision, directly over the sternum, working your way down in one smooth motion towards the groin."

A low hiss of air was all that escaped Vernon's mouth; the vicious nerve-block had robbed him of the ability to shriek in agony.

"No, stop right there. We'll study the abdominal organs on your cousin and aunt; it would be quite difficult to deal with such a large amount of fat. Now, cross-section him...not too deeply! Good."

Under careful guidance from his father, Harry gently peeled the mass of skin and fat back to reveal...

"What's that?" Harry said, eyes wide with confusion as he pointed to the throbbing, dark-red wet...thing that seemed glued to the underside of his Uncle's ribs.

"That's the pleura. If we went down further into the abdomen, you'd see something a bit similar called the peritoneum. The pleura covers the lungs, but it is quite delicate. Here, let's take a closer look at it."

Harry watched as, with gloved hands, his father grasped two ribs and snapped them with a twist before gently scraping the sticky red thing underneath free of the bone. Vernon shuddered slightly. Harry was impressed; he didn't know how much strength it took to accomplish, but the sheer ease with which his father had done it spoke of strength far outstripping what his gaunt features would seem to allow.

When all the ribs had been pulled away, Harry's father made a precise cut in the center and slowly and delicately peeled the sticky sheath away. Harry's eyes grew wider and wider as the lungs reluctantly came into view. And also...

"That," Doctor Crane said triumphantly, waving a bloodied hand at the reddish-yellow quivering lump barely visible behind the lungs, "is your Uncle's heart. He has a condition called _dextrocardia_. It means that instead of inhabiting the left side of his chest, which is much more common, it's on the right side."

"I thought they were supposed to be redder than that, Doctor Crane," Harry said in wonder, ignoring the twitching of the still-living man. "Why's it so yellowy?" He asked, poking it gently with a gloved finger.

"You'd be right, if this was a healthy person," his father admitted. "But Vernon is morbidly obese, and the yellow colouring is due to deposits of fat on the pericardium. Notice up here?" He asked, pressing his fingers into viscera to reveal a tubular shape. "This is the trachea, and right next to that, leading down into the abdomen, is the esophagus." Baby-blue eyes took on a teasing cast. Pointing to a feathery clump of _something_, he quizzed his son. "And what is this?"

"Um...a nerve?"

"Which nerve?"

"The...the numo...numa...something stomachey nerve."

Dr. Crane laughed. "Close. Pneumogastric nerve. And this?"

"Oh, that's easy," Harry said confidently. "That's the subclavian artery."

"Which one?"

"Left, Doctor Crane."

"Good. And what is this area called?"

"Mediastinum. Middle, sir."

For an hour, Jonathan Crane grilled his son about various bits of anatomy. Harry stumbled over some of the more difficult names ("Who the hell named it _Innominate_, anyway?"), and occasionally got things wrong, but overall, he'd done quite well.

"You've done very well, Harry," Jonathan praised, earning himself a smile. "Why don't you do a little bit of exploring with your uncle while I go prep your aunt?"

Green eyes looked up at him trustingly. "But what if I accidentally kill him, Doctor Crane?"

His father sighed. "Harry, Harry - if I come back and find that you've accidentally killed him, I'm going to be upset. Do you know why?"

"Because you told me that if you're going to kill a man, make sure you kill him _on purpose_?"

"Quite right. Don't worry! You'll do fine." Smiling down at his adopted son, he ruffled the boy's hair with his bloodied glove, earning him a squawk of protest. "Go on, have fun!" With that, the thin man strode out of the room, humming merrily, leaving Harry standing, scalpel in hand, as he thoughtfully looked into his Uncle's chest cavity.

Several minutes later, he shook himself, smiled slightly, and shifted the blade in his grip. "Well, Uncle Vernon," he said cheerfully, "Let's see what _makes you tick_. And after that, we'll find out what makes you _stop_ ticking. Won't that be _interesting_?"


	2. Sanity is Just Another Word for Boring

**Harry Knows #2 - Harry and Hermione Interact**

**or**

**"Sanity is Just Another Word for Boring"**

Harry slowly circle around Hermione, green eyes reflecting the light strangely. Though his face was calm, there was a touch of the malign in that enigmatic smile.

"Do you want to know something very interesting, Hermione Granger? They say that most people have little fear of the everyday, of the ordinary. That the 'fear' attached to things like spiders and snakes is more akin to revulsion." He stopped circling her and cocked his head to one side. One eye slowly closed half-way. Hermione's brow furrowed in mild irritation. "They say that the greatest fear of the common man is that of..." and here Harry paused dramatically, "the unknown."

With a sharp bark of laughter, he leaned away and wrapped his arms around himself. "The quote-unquote unknown!" He mocked, a smile bleeding into his expression. "'Oh, yes - I'm ever so bloody terrified of something I don't know a damned thing about!' Isn't that stupid? It's like being afraid of whatever colour of knickers the girl next to you is wearing. 'Unknown', indeed."

"I would venture to guess," Hermione said, pursing her lips, "that the fear originates more in what we imagine to exist within the confines of the 'Unknown'."

"But my dear, sweet, stupid Ravenclaw, who the fuck ever said that 'the Unknown' was a place? Whoever relegated it to a mere geographical measurement?"

"And whoever decided that it wasn't?"

"Ha. I could tear that idiotic rejoinder to bloody, frothing SHREDS, but how does one conjure these 'fearful things' that 'exist within the confines of the Unknown'? Why, in fact, does man do it?"

Hermione snorted and leaned against a wall. "Because man is a stupid, panicky animal that jumps at the slightest indication that there may be something outside of his absolute control."

Harry pushed himself off of the wall quite suddenly, took four quick, sharp steps forward, and put his smiling face mere inches away from hers. "So, we aren't so foolish, after all, are we?" he cooed, tracing her jawline with a finger. Hermione shuddered; half-revolted, and half(disturbingly)-aroused. "So we see man for what it is. Animals. And animals will always cower before a stronger animal." Harry slid his finger down to her chin and grasped it gently between thumb and forefinger. "Man isn't afraid of the nameless, the formless, or the baseless. No, no, no...man fears what he can see, touch, hear, smell, taste. Man fears everything. Reality. Existence, whatever the fuck you want to call it. He fears it because he knows what it can do to him."

Suddenly, he snapped the fingers of his free hand in her face, startling her. *snap* "A bus hits him!" *snap* "Heart attack!" *snap* "Poisonous Snake bites him!" *snap* "He slips in the shower!" *snap* "Dead!" *snap* "Dead!" *snap* "Dead!"

Brown eyes were wide as they stared into malevolently cheerful green. "No, man fears the finite, the actual. In the face of crippling, mind-destroying soul-crushing terror, man has no power."

"Why are you telling me this? What are you even saying?"

Again, another smile, but this one reached his eyes. "I'm saying that I'll own this world. I'm going to dominate this pathetic ball of dust and water, and I'm going to be feared beyond anything that exists. And I want you there with me."

"You want to rule the world?" He's mad, he must be abso-bloody-fucking-lutely stonking raving!

"Not 'want'; going to. It's inevitable, really; I haven't got any fear. But others do, and isn't fear what keeps everyone in line?" Behind the glasses, the killing curse eyes sparkled wickedly. "Isn't fear what makes people behave? It isn't so much as a calling or a desire; it's simply what's going to happen." Harry ran his hand gently through Hermione's bushy hair, and the girl wasn't sure whether to recoil or to moan in pleasure.

"In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the kingdom of the fearful, the fearless man is God!" Then Harry leaned in and whispered seductively in the girl's ear: "The Goddess Hermione..."


	3. If You Can't Say Anything Nice

**Harry Knows #3 - Harry and Draco Have a Conversation...Sort of**

**or**

**"If You Can't Say Anything Nice, Don't Say Anything Ever Again."**

Draco Malfoy's eyes shot open, and a yell tried to force its way past his lips. Or rather, where his lips had been. His hands were bound in front of him, his legs firmly tied together, and his mouth was missing. Oh, he could still make noise - his tongue and throat were there, of course - but there was a smooth film of flesh between his teeth and the open air. Softly padding footsteps drew his attention up, where he saw-

"Potter!" He screamed, or tried to. It came out as rather a pathetic, muffled "Hhhdr", and not very loudly. Harry beamed down at his fellow Slytherin, his face a mask of cherubic innocence.

"Hello, Draco," he said, his voice full of genuine warmth. "I'm terribly sorry about all this, but you see, it was necessary." Firmly pulling the bound boy to a sitting position, he fastidiously patted the dust from Draco's robes. A confused murmur emanated from where the Malfoy heir's mouth would have been.

"Oh, I suppose you want me to restore your mouth?" At the other Slytherin's nod, Harry chuckled warmly. "No, I'm afraid I can't do that. You see, giving someone the opportunity to speak is generally regarded as a bad thing when you only really require them to listen" A blonde eyebrow went up in a considering manner. Harry let that statement sink in for a few moments before continuing. "Especially," he said, eyes sparkling, "when you intend to butcher said person like cattle."

Harry laughed lightly as grey eyes widened and Draco's struggles increased. "But I suppose you want some explanation? After all, I've never so much as said a cross word to you before today. Come to that, we simply haven't spoken very much at all, really. Oh, I see it in your eyes - 'then why kill me', right?"

Draco nodded, attempting to palm to small Potions knife he kept on him at all times. Harry dismissively slapped the small tool away, sending it skittering across the cobble floor. For the first time, Draco noticed that they were in an old classroom; the walls, floor, and desks were covered with a veritable cushion of dust, and the air was stale and smelt of mould. Harry plopped down next to his intended victim and chummily put his arm around the terrified boy's shoulder.

"My father is a...muggle, as you magicals have so inelegantly put it (really, did you try to make the term sound offensive?), and he's also the smartest man I've ever met. What does he have to do with this, you wonder? Why, everything!" Another heartfelt laugh. "You simply must understand, my dear old cod, that I'm simply following the advice of a man I admire very much. And that's to eliminate the competition."

Draco felt absurdly pleased at being labeled thusly, but whatever morbid pleasure he received was quickly ripped away. "Oh, not that you're much competition; after all, my goal is complete world...well, I'd say 'domination', but that's been so over-used that it's become rather gauche. I suppose I could call it, 'proactive planetary acquisition'...but that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue." He shrugged, rolled to his feet, and began to pace in front of Draco.

"You see, Drakes, you're a fool. And not just any fool; you're epically stupid. To a degree, I must admit, that I haven't encountered in anyone who wasn't severely mentally disabled. But in the hands of fools, it is said, a little knowledge becomes a dangerous thing. Well, after five years in the so-called 'pre-eminent Wizarding Academy of Europe', you had to have picked up a little bit of knowledge. Well, you probably had it stuffed between your ears until bits of it fell out either side, but that's not the point." Harry stopped suddenly and whirled on the incapacitated Slytherin.

"The point is this: You represent a known factor - your father is a Death Eater, and just one step shy of being so openly. You've been spouting his rhetoric to any poor beast with ears, and you've made it plenty clear that you intend to follow in his footsteps." Harry paused for a moment, and then sniggered. "From what I hear of his preferences, you following him is much safer for young boys that the reverse would be."

Draco raged impotently and rather quietly, until a vicious kick to his jaw laid him out. He could just make out two teeth laying on his tongue through the haze. The last Potter grabbed Draco's hair and forced the other boy to look him in his no-longer-cheerful eyes.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to shut the fuck up when someone is having the goddamned courtesy to explain why they're killing you?" He shook his head. "Kids these days. You take the fun out of everything." He sighed heavily. "In any case, dear old Daddy Lucius enjoys tonguing Voldemort's hole. You're desperate to stick your own up his arse, and quite frankly, the only real threat out of the three of you is His Royal Fuckwit-ness, Moldy Voldie, and that's because we have similar goals." Harry ran his hand through his expertly coiffed hair and sighed again. "The short of it is, by killing you, I deprive the Dark Lord Whatsisname of a follower. By depriving him of a follower, I make things that much easier for myself when I eventually crush this little planet beneath my heels."

"There's also the element of practice," came a female's voice, and Draco turned around as best as he could to see Granger of all people - little fetish-for-the-rules Granger - practically prancing up to Potter, clad in a floor-length heavy canvas smock. He boggled as the other Slytherin roughly tweaked the Ravenclaw's nipples through the smock, receiving a truly brutal slap in return before kissing the girl violently. She returned the embrace with equal fervor, and almost three minutes passed before they separated.

"That's true enough," Harry allowed, resting his hand Hermione's rump, using his thumb to search for evidence of undergarments through the thick cloth. "After all, you can't expect to instill fear in the mindless animals that populate the world unless you can show them exactly why submission is the better choice, and while I'm completely capable, Hermione is woefully inexperienced." He turned to Draco, his eyes glinting with a strange fire. "You should feel honoured, Drakes; you're going to be her first kill. She'll remember this moment for the rest of her life."

"Are you finished with him yet, Harry?" Hermione almost whined at Potter, who waved dismissively. Brown eyes lit up like a child in a toy store, and she sauntered over to the bound boy. Smoothly sliding into his lap in disturbingly erotic manner, she leaned close and whispered in his ear:

"Do you want to know something interesting, Draco Malfoy? They say a girl never forgets her first time..."


	4. How's Your Meal, Dr Lecter?

**Harry Knows #4 - Harry and Snape Work Things Out**

**or**

**"How's Your Meal, Dr. Lector?"**

"Wakey, wakey, Professor," Harry sing-songed, and slapped Severus Snape. The man blinked groggily - is that Gamayun wing I taste? - and shook himself.

Admittedly, a difficult thing to do when chained to a wall. He glared at the two teens, Potter and his mudblood bint, who were standing in front of him with eerily matching looks of mild amusement at his current predicament.

"Potter, I'll see you expelled for this," Severus growled in a low dangerous tone. "You and that whore of yours."

Potter shook his head sadly, a faint smile on his face. "Oh, Professor, Professor - you disappoint me so! I have you chained to a wall deep in an Unplottable, Fidelius-ed location, completely helpless, and you have the effrontery to threaten me? I admit, I have to award Slytherin ten whole points for Gryffindorish bravado. Simply astounding!"

"Potter, you'll release me this instant or-"

"Or what, worm?" Granger snarled, and the Potions Master was honestly taken aback by the vehemence in her voice. "You'll wet your pants and flatulate us to death?"

"Now, now, Hermione," Harry soothed, running his hands through the girl's bushy brown hair, "remember! We need to use our inside voice." To Snape's revulsion, the brown eyes fluttered closed and the little slut leaned into the brat's disgusting caresses.

"You're even more delusional than your useless father was!" Snape spat, struggling against the manacles that held him, spread-eagle, against the wall. But Harry merely shrugged.

"Delusional...I prefer to think of myself as a man of vision. And you've never met my father, in any case."

"Of course I-"

"I'm speaking of Dr. Jonathan Crane, you pusillanimous pustule, a man you have never had the courage nor the strength of will to meet face-to-face." Slowly, as Snape watched, a truly disturbing grin stretched across the young man's face. It did not reach his eyes. "I suppose, then, that you were speaking of James Potter? A man who certainly contributed genetic material for my existence, but who, thanks to your direct interference, has been dead for sixteen years."

"Harry, don't forget that he also killed your mother," Hermione said, a beatific smile gracing her countenance. Harry clucked his tongue in mock annoyance.

"So he did. Thank you, Hermione." Turning back to Snape, he resumed in a tone of casual conversation. "The funny thing is, you tried to convince everyone around you that you owed me a life-debt, one that I inherited from my father. Now, frankly, I don't understand how they were fooled by that, seeing as it was you who caused their deaths."

"Idiot boy, I-"

"**_Jeg har ikke gitt du lov å tale_**!" There was dead silence as Snape goggled at the boy who'd just used Words of Power - real Nordic Words of Power! - on him with such impunity. The smile was gone now, replaced by a look of bored indifference.

"Quite honestly, your comparisons between me and my biological father are really rather absurd. From what I understand, he was of middling intellect, with more interest in having fun or getting a leg-over than in learning. And thanks to you, I never got to know him, or my mother whom you profess to love (oh-so-secretly, might I add - oh, don't give me that look, unless you really do need to use the upper?). But I fear I"ve gotten off-track as it is. You see, while it irritates me mildly, your murder of my biological parents is barely worth mentioning. Quite honestly, you did me something of a favour, though I'm sure that it pains you to hear that."

Harry motioned to Hermione, who nodded and left the room as Harry picked up a wicked, oddly curved knife and slashed open the chest area of Snape's robes, allowing pale, mildly flabby skin to show through. With a deliberate motion, Harry hovered the tip of the blade over the bound man's stomach, a few inches above his navel, and then made a very shallow cut in the flesh. Severus didn't even twitch; it was barely more than a papercut.

To his surprise, the last Potter cleaned the knife immediately and stored it away. Looking his prisoner dead in the eye, he said, "I have now received ample revenge for the deaths of James and Lily Potter; you are absolved of their murders." A flash of red lightning arced between the two before Potter's eyes began to dance merrily.

"There is, however, the matter of your treatment of both Hermione and myself over the past six years. Are you aware," he stated, using his index finger to trace designs on a tabletop, "of the concept of Karma?"

Still bound by the Words of Powers, Severus Snape could only glare impotently at the boy, who seemed not to notice. "Essentially, it boils down to 'What goes around, comes around'. While certainly not the most in-depth of expositions, it will suffice. You see, you have repeatedly made it clear that you are our enemy. From the very first, you have set yourself up at my opponent. Which," Harry stated with mock-sadness, "was a rather stupid thing to do. You see, we're both playing the game, but you just gave me a penalty shot. If you don't understand the reference, don't worry; it hardly matters. The upshot of it is-"

The door burst open, and Snape saw that Hermione was leading a writhing, howling Ron Weasley on the end of a lead. The boy was thrashing and growling like a beast, throwing himself thither and yon with all his power. Snape stared, and Harry chuckled.

"The upshot of it is, you're going to die, Snape. Here. And since you're so set on playing as though your life was a Greek Tragedy, we figured we'd oblige. Unfortunately, we couldn't find an eagle to peck out and eat your liver, so we had to settle for somewhat less on the food chain. Ron was easy enough to manipulate - he's spelled up to the gills, and won't remember any of this - we just had to make him talk loud, not make any sense, and eat like an animal, and nobody knew the difference. Nobody ever suspected that he was under a curse that we can turn on or off as we will." Harry shrugged.

"But cheer up, Professor - unlike Prometheus, at least your liver won't regrow. I hear that jaundice won't be a problem for hours, but as you probably know, Weasely's a messy eater. He may not hit your liver for some time." He smiled malevolently as Hermione and nodded. She released the chain, and Ron shot forwards, his eyes wide and focused on the little trail of blood on Snape's stomach, whose mouth was open in a silent scream.

"Bon Appetìte, Weasley. Try not to make too much of a mess, hmm?"


	5. Time Waits For No Man

**Harry Knows #5 - Harry and Dumbledore Have a Heart-to-Heart**

**or**

**"Time Waits For No Man, But He'll Cook if You Ask Him Nicely"**

Albus Dumbledore looked up as the stone gargoyle forbidding entrance to his office slid open with a low scraping sound, and Harry Potter stepped in.

"Good evening, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said genially, though his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "Isn't it rather late for you to be up and about?"

The Slytherin chuckled, almost good-naturedly, and bobbed his head from side to side. "Trust the Great Headmaster Albus Dumbledore to lead off with a non-sequitur." If anything, the beautiful smile on the well-dressed boy's face widened. "You aren't itching to know how I got past the guardian? You don't want to know why I'm here in this room, when your every tracking spell and device claim that I am snug in my bed and dreaming of doing unspeakable things to Hermione's willing form?"

"I will admit to being curious, Harry," the much older man said pleasantly, "as it is not often that one of my age and experience is outsmarted by a youth a mere fraction of his age. I believe that twenty points to Slytherin are in order?"

At that, Harry burst out laughing. "Sideways!" He roared, throwing his head back in mirth. "That's how you do it - you approach everything sideways! At first barmy, then incomprehensible, and finally wise; that's how people perceive you. You've been playing the role of the wise, slightly touched benevolent guide for so long that anything becomes an opportunity to throw even the wary off-track. They see a chair, you see a rather badly-designed commode!"

The old man's eyes twinkled merrily, but he knew that as pleasant, as forthright and open as the Potter boy appeared, it was merely a front. The mysterious disappearances of Professor Snape and Draco Malfoy had some connection to the boy in front of him now, and Albus was keenly aware that he was not the only actor in the castle. There was a faint, almost non-existent aura of ill-intent constantly surrounding the popular, easygoing boy.

"Alas, I have been found out," Dumbledore chuckled, making sure his grip on the Elder Wand was firm. The boy was planning something, he was sure of that!

He was right.

"Yes, my dear, beloved Headmaster," Harry grinned, and malevolence flashed behind those eerie green eyes. "You have been...found out." Suddenly, a spasm of pain arced from the centre of the old man's chest and down his left side. Gasping in shock, Dumbledore reflexively grasped at his heart...leaving the Elder Wand unattended for a split second.

That was all that was needed. With speed more befitting the mascot of his House, Harry snatched the Wand and flicked it into the air, where it disappeared with a snap of his fingers. "You see, Albus," Harry said genially as the old man slowly recovered from the shock, "you have been utterly found out. Exposed. Revealed. Behind your mien of second-childhood, behind your mask of self-righteousness and wisdom, behind your little semantic games, I've seen you. I know what you are, and who you are."

"What have you done, Mr. Potter?" Albus gasped. His left side wasn't responding well - it was taking everything he had to move his arm.

Ignoring him, Harry reached over and plucked a lemon drop from the bowl on the Headmaster's desk and popped it into his mouth. "These lemon drops are truly excellent, by the way."

Dumbledore was in too much pain to appreciate the compliment.

"Now comes my favourite part," Harry said, hopping to his feet and examining the headmaster's bookshelf, passing the phoenix cage. Fawkes glared stonily at the boy, who merely smiled in return before pulling out a small tome titled with Cyrillic characters. "Story-tiiiime!" Harry sang, his back to the ailing Headmaster. "You see, not so very long ago, in a place very near here, a powerful, arrogant, self-serving man decided that his hand was not too heavy a burden for all others to bear. He very calmly began to plot. His goal? Total annihilation of all who opposed him, and the advent of a ruling class over the 'mindless peons'. And he attempted rule with an iron fist."

"Tom Riddle is still out there, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore wheezed. Even the left side of his face was numb.

"Tom Riddle is completely unimportant," Harry shot back. "He doesn't even enter this story except tangentally. The man I speak of is you, Dumbledore. Tom Riddle was a powerful psychopath who attracted other psychopaths to him. He attacked blindly, madly, possessing neither cunning nor grace." Harry chuckled and stole another lemon drop. "Hardly befitting of a Dark 'Lord', hmm? You see, words have power, and prophetic words moreso."

Even half-paralyzed, Dumbledore's face conveyed his shock, which was noticed. "Yes, I know of your little 'Power he has Not' Prophecy. Funny thing about your interpretation, though - you always vacillated between literalism and symbolism. You were so very sure that my parents had only defied Voldie three times." Here he paused and looked down his nose at the man. "Really? Because choosing to join an order opposing him isn't defiance? Rejection of his dogma isn't defiance? How imbecilic you are! James and Lily Potter must have defied the man constantly. And then there's the issue of the 'power he knows not'. What an open-ended statement that is. It speaks of a 'power', and you naturally assume it to be something as nebulous and candy-floss-substantial as 'love'. From literalism to mad conceptualism, all in the same breath of air." Green eyes sparkled merrily. "You're mixing your tenses, and the Headmaster of a school, no less! Tsk, tsk. "

"But I digress. Thanks to your meddling, and your coddling of your pet project, of whom I have disposed of already, Lily and James Potter are dead. Perhaps without your influence, I would have grown up in the manner you find most appealing, as a slavish devotée of this 'Light' you seem to hold so dear." He chuckled. "Oh, well. As is, you tried to send me to Hell with an abusive, violent lot. Fortunately, a certain visiting doctor was in the area and saw you drop a toddler on a doorstop like so much milk, and with the merest note of explanation. Naturally, as one devoted to healing, he couldn't allow such a travesty to occur. Do you know, for my tenth birthday, he took me back to that house?"

Aged skin, already pale with agony and covered in sweat, whitened further. "You...!"

"Yes, me. Such a shame about a middle-class family of fine-upstanding folks. I knew them for all of thirty seconds before I decided to kill them. I wonder how long it would have taken me on my own? In any case, this all brings us to the present."

"You see, Albus, I'm not particularly upset at you. You've been ever so amusing, what with your lip-service to a hazy, nebulous 'good' and your oh-so-clever manipulations. Quite frankly, it's been all I can do not to shriek with laughter at every puerile 'adventure' you've 'guided' me into. And I know you'll take joy in the knowledge that I am who I am because of you. I really want to thank you for abusing the trust my parents placed in you; after all, I would have never met Father otherwise. But I simply can't have someone like you hanging about. As easily diverted as you are, as simple as you are, as inept as you are, you do have power. Enough to seriously annoy me later on, and I'd really rather not have to deal with you in the future." He reached into his pocket, and brought out a tiny, regularly pulsing blue orb.

"This is a rather clever device, made by a rather clever witch." Harry turned the orb over in his hands before holding it out to the paralyzed man. "Do you see how it pulses? It's tuned to your heartbeat, Albus. And, interestingly enough, you are tuned to it. As I said, a very clever witch."

The green eyes widened in excitement. "And speaking of heartbeats, do you want to know something very interesting, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore? The heart beats because of electrical pulses sent along the nerves from the brain. It's ninety-nine per cent muscle, with the rest being nervous and connective tissue. It is the single strongest muscle in your body, and the most important muscle as well. And for all that, it's so very delicate. If you administer a shock at just the right time between beats-" Harry rapped on the orb, and there was a panicked fluttering of pulses before the orb went dark. He looked up to see Albus Dumbledore's mouth wide in a rictus of agony, his right arm tearing frantically at his chest.

"-well, I suppose I'll leave you to discover that for yourself," Harry demurred. "In any case, I must dash. There's so much more to do. But don't look so sad, Albus; after all, you're going on your next great adventure."


	6. Homicide Can Be A Real Gas

**Harry Knows #6 - Harry and Umbridge Come to an Understanding**

**or**

**"Homicide Can Be a Real Gas"**

The door closed and locked, and then there was only the two of them. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, and Delores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and Hogwart's High Inquisitor. Harry's right hand opened and closed as he stretched his fingers.

"Now, then," the woman said, a saccharine smile on her face, "shall we begin with the lines again? You do recall the words? 'I-must-not-tell-lies'."

Harry's eyes, normally sparkling or bright, were flat, and his perpetual grin of good humour was nowhere to be found. Instead, his lips had compressed to a thin line as he regarded the woman in the horrendous pink sweater coldly. Either Delores was braver than expected, or she was too stupid to notice the clear danger signals Harry was sending; either way, she seemed to take his silence as an offense.

"Oh, dear," Umbridge said, her unconvincing smile widening even more, "That will be one hundred more lines for not answering a teacher when she speaks to you."

Harry said nothing, but he cocked his head to the side slightly. His eyes sharpened, but still held the same coolly malevolent quality. Umbridge's grin disappeared. How dare this brat stare at her?

"Two hundred additional lines, Mr. Potter!" She snapped, and she threw the Blood Quill at him. "Get started, or I'll bring Mr. Filch up here to use his toys, and then you will be sor-" She gagged and coughed as the room suddenly spun and wavered. Clutching her throat, she fell to her knees. There was a cracking noise as bone met stone, and lost. She was dimly aware of the Potter boy standing over her. Wandlessly, he cast a Silencio spell at her.

"I'm not normally given to displays of anger, you know," Harry said, his voice low and tight. "Anger is for the puerile and the foolish. It destroys reason, and stands opposed to clarity and focus. But you annoy me more than most, woman, and more to the point, you actually damaged me. Your games were amusing at first, but you crossed the line. For that, I've decided to...experiment with you." If the High Inquisitor could have answered him, she would have railed against him, his parentage, and his blood status, but as it was, she could only claw ineffectually at her constricting chest.

"You see, my father invented a compound...well, 'invented' is not the right word. He distilled and purified the essential oils from a rare Asian flower, the lán xīng huā, and it yielded some rather...interesting results. It turns out that, when ionized and transmuted into a gas, it because a terrifically powerful hallucinogen that hyperstimulates certain areas of the amygdala." There was a pause as this was processed. "In case you don't know what that means, which I feel to be very likely, it boils down to causing mind-numbing terror. Fear. When the door closed behind me, I dropped and crushed a glass pellet containing one hundred milligrams of that gas. A bubblehead charm earlier this evening was enough to protect me."

"But do you want to know something very interesting, Delores Umbridge?" Now a little bit of life entered that flat, monotone growl, although Umbridge was too far gone to appreciate that. "When augmented with a little bit of magic, this substance becomes several orders of magnitude more potent. Ordinarily, the amount you inhaled would be enough to send you screaming over the abyss of reason into the void of madness. Now?" And there was real dark amusement in his voice now. "Well, certain members of the rodent family can be continually startled in such a manner as to induce a fatal heart attack, a comparison which I found rather...fitting. As it stands, your own mind will quite literally frighten you to death."

Umbridge's eyes widened, and her mouth gaped in a scream of terror that would have broken the minds of any who heard it. Harry's lips quirked up in a satanic smirk. He leaned down to the writhing, silenced woman and whispered, "Nighty-night, Delores. Don't let the nightmares bite."


	7. Peter, Peter, Fat Death Eater

**Harry Knows #7 - Harry and Wormtail Talk Shop**

**or**

**"Peter, Peter, Fat Death Eater, Had A Life But Then He Met Harry"**

"Well, well. Fancy meeting you here, Peter." Peter Pettigrew, ex-Marauder, former Gryffindor, and current Death Eater froze. He knew that daemonically cherubic voice, and feared it more than anything else in the world. He whipped around, drawing his wand as fast as he could, hoping to fire a curse - he didn't know which, just something deadly to buy him some time to get away - but a dazzling silver light flashed before his lips could form the first syllable that came to mind, and a light clatter echoed in the Shrieking Shack as the better part of his wand dropped to the floor. The knife that had slashed through the wood like butter was curiously formed, and curved wickedly into an exaggerated semicircle.

Harry Potter smiled, half-ensconced in the moon-bred shadows. His was an admittedly lovely smile, and it graced features equally as beautiful. Regardless of House affiliation, female fingers of tender years (and a few not-so-tender) worked frantically in the darker hours upon remembrance of that almost unearthly beauty. But Wormtail knew, as did all who had the misfortune to be counted an obstacle by the boy, that whatever sweetness graced Harry Potter's surface was parodied underneath by sheer, unadulterated malignancy. Harry's fingers flicked demonstratively, and Wormtail whimpered as he felt tremendously powerful Anti-Apparition and Anti-Portkey Wards slam down.

"Harry, I didn't mean it," Peter choked, eyes dodging frantically in search of some escape, some bolthole where he would be safe from the elegant vision of evil in front of him. "They threatened me...they told me-"

"Wands are so impersonal, don't you think?" Harry interrupted, the beatific expression on his face unwavering as he lowered his head, vibrant green stabbing into the man. The Slytherin toyed with the knife between his fingers as he took a single step out of the shadows and into the pale bluish light. "Rather like guns, in a way," he continued, and Peter found himself frozen by the sheer force of will from the last Potter. "I've always been a fan of knives myself. I mean, you come at a man with a knife, and you just _know_ that somewhere in the back of his mind, he's grateful for the chance to meet his attacker face-to-face. There's a sort of honour about knives, don't you think?"

"H-Harry, you have to believe me-"

"Why?" Harry cut Pettigrew off. "Why, exactly, should I believe you regarding anything?"

"For Merlin's sake, Harry," Peter sobbed, knowing that he was going to die, just as Draco had, as Snape had, and Umbridge had. Even as Dumbledore had, and hadn't he been the most powerful man alive? "I was friends with your parents!"

"That's true," Harry acknowledged. His smile, if possible, grew a little wider, and he sighed theatrically. "Peter, _Peter_," he said sweetly, "You seem to be under the impression that I'm angry with you. Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say that you believe that I intend to murder you!"

"_I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!_" Peter shrieked, what little nerve he had deserting him. "Malfoy; you did it to him, and Snape...oh, _God_, SNAPE...! You can't fool ME!" Didn't this room have doors when he came in? And how was there moonlight without any windows? "You did it to Umbridge and Dumbledore, and next you'll do it to me, too...!"

Harry took a step forward and raised his hands peacefully. The knife was no-where to be seen. "Shush, Peter," he soothed, "Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm not angry at you in the slightest. I swear on my magic and my life that it's so, so mote it be."

The excommunicated Marauder had huddled down in the far corner, arms covering his head defensively. When the flash of light receded, so did the arms, though they revealed a disbelieving stare. "Y-you're not?"

Harry shook his head. "No, Peter." The Slytherin held out his hand, and despite all of his senses screaming at him not to take it, the oath couldn't be faked. Slowly, a pudgy hand reached up to meet it.

There was a blue flash, and Peter Pettigrew knew no more.

When he came to, he was naked and strapped spread-eagle on what felt like a polished wooden table. His Dark Mark was prominently displayed on his forearm. He squinted; there was a very bright electric light hanging over him, and he smelled sawdust, oil, and several other things that he couldn't identify. He berated himself mentally for being stupid enough to allow the son of his betrayed friend manipulate him, and cast the only wandless magic he was capable of: The Animagus Transformation.

Or rather, tried to. He felt the buzz of magic, felt it pulse through him, but at the last second, before the change could start, something..._turned it away_, for lack of a better description.

"You didn't really expect that to work, did you?" The cheerful voice came, and Pettigrew turned his head. Harry had changed into a heavy canvas apron, and pinned his long hair back. His eyes were covered by plastic safety glasses, although Pettigrew didn't know what they were, and the sparkled malevolently. "Funny thing about magic that I've discovered - apparently, magic has an electrical frequency of 7.714 nanohertz. I don't expect you to understand this, but when the wave is inverted and played through a very special speaker capable of transmitting such low frequencies" -here he placed his hand on a very large black mesh-covered box proudly- "phase cancellation essentially creates a 'null-field' of magic. The sound is too low for you to hear, of course, but I'm sure that by now, you're aware of the application?" Harry mock-pouted. "Pity magic-heavy areas like Diagon Alley prevent it from working in the first place, but it's sufficient for me at least."

"You s-said you wouldn't hurt me!" Peter shrieked. "You swore on your magic!" Harry shrugged and stretched a roll of greyish sticky fabric across Wormtail's mouth, silencing him.

"Tut, tut, Peter," Harry smiled, wagging his finger reprovingly. "I only swore that I wasn't angry at you, and it was the truth. But even if I'd sworn on my life that I would grovel at the feet of your master, kiss his robes and swallow his pecker ten times a day, it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. While we're here in my null-field, magic can't see or hear us. And it can't very well kill me if it can't see me break the oath." Harry's lips parted, revealing brilliant white teeth. "Quite an amazing piece of technological achievement, isn't it? But I digress," he said, picking up a strange, circular device and plugging it in. "Do you know what this is, Peter? No?" Suddenly, the device roared to life in his hands, ramping up once, twice, thrice, each time cycling down slightly before coming alive again. "This is an electric circular sander. Muggles use these to smooth out rough edges and materials. This model is quite expensive, because it can handle sanding wheels for wood, metal, and concrete." For demonstration purposes, he brought the sander to full speed and set the rotating circle against a heavy spur of wood in a vice-clamp. In seconds, the air was filled with the scent of burnt wood, and the chunk of oak had become considerably shorter.

"Fascinating, don't you think?" Harry brought the sander over to the table where Wormtail was strapped down, and he looked down at his prisoner, his smile becoming something ugly. "You see, I'm showing you this because I'm in the mood for a little experiment. That Dark Mark that you Death Eaters have interests me. Not enough to get one myself, mind - I've no intention of shackling myself to your pathetic little madman's whims - but it brings to mind a couple of questions. Namely, 'Can it be removed'?" Seeing Pettigrew's eyes grow wide, he hastened to clarify. "Oh, I'm not going to cut off your arm," he said dimissively, "but let's see if a little abrasion can't clear up that nasty blotch on your skin, hmm?"

The sander roared to life, the canvas apron and plastic glasses were spattered with crimson, and behind his duct-tape gag, Pettigrew screamed and threw himself about trying to escape from the agony of having the flesh of his forearm scraped away layer by layer. The smell of friction-charred flesh hung heavy in the air as, two minutes later, the sander hit bone.

"Oh, my. Now isn't _this_ interesting?" The Slytherin said with poisonous glee. Through the tears, Peter followed Harry's gaze to his _right_ forearm, where to his horror, the Dark Mark slowly re-formed. "So," Harry mused, a wicked light burning in his eyes, "If the original arm is damaged too much, it goes to the other?" Harry met Wormtail's gaze. "Wonder where it goes when there isn't enough arm left. What do you say, Wormsy - think that it's worth exploring?" Peter shrieked through his gag and threw his head violently from side to side. The grin turned diabolic. "Oh, I'm so _happy _you agree."

The sander roared to life.


	8. The Brains on the Floor Go

******Harry Knows #8 - **In Which Fudge Gives Harry a Piece of His Mind

**or**

**"The Brains on the Floor Go Squish, Squish, Squish..."**

Cornelius Fudge whimpered. It was a natural response, really, considering that he was stuck in his office chair...or rather, that his office chair was stuck in him. Harry Crane had partially transfigured both him and the chair, even as he sat in it, so that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Flesh and leather blurred together painfully and, Fudge feared, permanently.

Harry was crouched on Fudge's desk, not a foot away from the terrified Minster of Magic. Bloodied hands gripped the boy's own legs as he sat childishly, chin on his knees and with a diabolic grin on his beautiful face. Pieces of his secretary (Pucey? Perky? Something like that. Weatherbee he was sure of, though. Or at least reasonably so; useless peons were so hard to keep track of) decorated the office in lurid, glistening streaks of colour.

"You don't look happy, Mister Minister," Harry mused, and Fudge gurgled in the back of his throat. It was all he could do, as his lips were sewn together, and any movement at all made the bleeding holes shoot terrific agony through his jaw. The bright green eyes brightened. "I know! How about a joke or two? Those always cheer me up!"

The soon-to-be-EX-Minister of Magic shuddered; Harry's plan seemed so obvious now: Get him to laugh out loud while the thin metal wire keeping his lips together were intact, making them rip through the flesh and causing pain.

If only it were that simple.

"Okay, okay," Harry said, his breath coming in short pants as his excitement and amusement grew. "Stop me if you've heard this one. What sound does a baby crup make when you toss it in a cauldron of boiling water?" The horrified look from Fudge intensified as the 'punchline' was delivered. "No idea!" Harry crowed with laughter. "I was too busy wanking to listen!" Shrieks of merriment burst forth from the Demented Last 'Potter' for several minutes as Fudge felt the bile begin to rise. Suddenly, the laughter stopped.

"No luck, eh?" Harry mused, acting disappointed. "Okay, how about this? A paedophile and a child are walking into the Forbidden Forest. The child says to the paedophile, 'I don't like it in here; it's scary!'. 'How do you think I feel?', the paedophile shoots back, 'I have to walk back this way alone!'." Roaring with mirth, Harry leaned forward and caught the trapped Minister's cheeks in his bloodied hands. The laughter, again, died abruptly.

"Geez. Tough crowd," was muttered by the son of Jonathan Crane. "Well if this doesn't work, I don't know what. This guy's wife goes into labour, and he's at the hospital, and he says to the Healer, 'Oh, Doc! I'm so worried! How are they?'. And the doctor just shakes his head and smiles, and he says:

_'You have nothing to worry about. Your wife's given birth to a healthy baby boy, and they're both in tip-top condition. You're one lucky guy!'_

"So the guy rushes into the delivery room, bursts through the doors...and there's no one there. His wife's bed is empty. The whole room is empty. _'Doc?'_ he says, and turns around to find the Healer and alllll the nurses, who wave their arms in the air and scream in his face:

_'April Fools! You're wife's dead and the baby's a spastic'!"_ Harry shrieked with laughter, before a female voice from the doorway cut him off.

"You're really sick, you know that, Harry?" Nymphadora Tonks was leaning up against the doorway with her arms crossed and her robes open in the front, showing that her bloodstained body was completely naked and smeared with bloody handprints.

"Mmm-hmmm," Harry grunted, a cherubic smile suffusing his features, before turning back to Fudge, who was fighting his impulse to vomit in his mouth. "You know, Fudgie old boy," Harry began pleasantly, before a demonic rictus of anger completely dominated his face, "You make a really **lousy** audience." With that, Harry reared back before forming a 'V' with his fingers...and piercing Fudge's eyeballs with them. The clear, jellylike vitreous humour sprayed out as the blinded man shrieked. Curling his fingers around the inside of Fudges skull, Harry ripped him away from the chair that had grown into him, leaving chunks of flesh still attached in a spray of blood before slamming the bleeding, living head down onto the desk, over and over and over and over and over and OVER...

Tonks observed passively...then chuckled as Fudge's head split open, spilling spongey grey material everywhere. "What do you know?" she chuckled. "I was wrong. He did have a brain!"


	9. In Which Harry's Tale Ends

**Harry Knows #9 - In Which Harry's Tale Ends**

**or**

**"Me? I Thought YOU Brought the Marshmallows, Hermione!"**

Harry Crane grinned widely, a diabolic expression that looked strangely out of place on his angelic face. Though he sat in the Prime Minister's chair, and rested his feet (bare, of course) on the Prime Minister's desk, he was not the Prime Minister; not by a long shot. He just liked the digs, that's all.

After all, after one has slaughtered the Royal family, the entirety of the Ministries (both magical and mundane), and most of the standing army, a little change of scenery is appropriate.

He'd won; the British Isles were his to play with. Voldemort was dead. Albus Dumbledore was dead. Most of his enemies were dead. Some by his hand, some by his follower's, but a great many by his personal assassin/lover/architect Hermione. And of all those he'd corrupted, swayed, bound to his side and his will, she was the best. His favourite. His toy who could play and dance and command and direct just as well as he.

He didn't love her, of course, at least not in the classical sense. He loved nobody but himself. But he admired her, cherished her, respected her, protected her, and adored her with all that was within him. She opened up new doors for him, and though he himself was brilliant to the point of taking a flying leap over the thin line dividing genius and insanity, sometimes she seemed as far beyond him as he was beyond others. At times, she would startle him with the sheer unbridled prowess of her mind, and at others, she would point out something so blatantly obvious that he would curse himself for not seeing it.

In terms of chess, he was the king, the most important piece, and the leader...but Hermione...

Pawns he had aplenty. Narcissa and Tonks his knights, capable of hooked movements, sidling up and coming at his enemies from where they least expected it. Hagrid and Neville his rooks; powerful, stalwart, but straightforward. Tracey and Daphne his bishops, sliding gracefully across the board to pinion what foes he had remaining and cut off their escape, but Hermione...ah, she was the queen. Powerful, go-anywhere-do-anything.

Knock, knock.

Ah, talk of the Devil and she shall appear.

"Enter, my Queen."

Hermione slid into the room. Gone were the Hogwarts robes of her adolescence, and the mundane clothing of her youth. She'd discovered a fondness for tight-fitting leather clothing, preferring to go her way clad in startlingly brilliant white. He knew that she held more than forty knives hidden on her frame, and was unconcerned.

"Playing the Chess allegory again, Harry?"

"But of course." To the people of his dominion, he was 'God'. To those who opposed him abroad, he was 'Crane', usually prefixed by some combination of 'that bastard' or other epithets. To his closest followers, he was 'Lord Crane'. But to Hermione, he gave the singular privilege of calling him by his Christian name.

"You are my most powerful, most precious piece. I would rather sacrifice all else before I let you fall."

"Naturally not yourself, though."

"Naturally!" Harry grinned widely. She understood him so well! "How goes my Great Work?"

"It goes well. France is suing for peace already. The Delacour girl must have enjoyed her romp with you immensely if she's already managed to convince them this quickly."

"I offered to let you join in, you know."

Hermione half-shrugged. "I was busy with your servant Tonks. And frankly, blondes make me sick."

Harry arched an eyebrow. He'd wondered why she'd never indulged herself with Narcissa or Tracey. "After France's inevitable capitulation, would you like to kill her yourself, then?"

The white-clad young woman didn't so much as blink in surprise. "Is this because of me? Or did you always plan to have her eliminated?"

"Consider it a gift, if you will, but I haven't much use for someone so emotional in my New World. She's a loose end."

"Then I will enjoy ending her myself," Hermione declared. "The Teutonic countries are still holding out, but Austria and the Netherlands are crumbling quickly, as are Italy, Spain, Norway, and Sweden. Switzerland is still maintaining their neutrality."

Harry shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "That's fine. We'll destroy them later."

"An entire country, Harry?" Hermione asked calmly. "That's not going to go over well with the international community."

Harry regarded his lover/assassin briefly, and made a decision to let her in on the True goal of his plan. "Hermione, that's exactly the point."

"What?"

"War. War is the goal!" A strange fire lit in Harry's eyes as he catapulted himself out of the chair and over the desk, stalking around Hermione, who was looking stricken. "The English crumbled. The Wizards crumbled. It was so very, very...boring. Subtlety has its place, but that place is the past now. I want nothing more than The Last War, the one that will immortalise me, make me remembered long after I've gone! Do you know the beauty of it?" He faced the window, arms outstretched. "The earth trembling, the seas boiling, the sky itself burning red! That I had been born fifty years past! These little skirmishes with the Continent have done nothing but to whet my appetite!" He looked over his shoulder at Hermione, his eyes wide with delight.

"I've missed my beautiful war so very, very much. The symphony of screams, the chorus of tanks, the melody of bombs and the thundering drums of artillery! The majesty of men torn apart, the smell of ozone..." Harry closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Pushing, pulling, tearing away this pathetic, useless veneer of 'peace' and encompassing the world in the cleansing fires of endless destruction."

"A legacy that will forever change the world!" He roared, and the windows rattled with his joyful exuberance. He gracefully slid over to Hermione, who was wide-eyed with shock. Leaning close he purred into her ear:

"Now, isn't that something to look forward to?"

He was so close that he had no time to react when her forearm wrapped around his neck, pulled him off balance, and let him hear her sorrowful "No" before his body flashed green and he fell to the ground.

Dead.

Hermione looked down at the body of her lover for a moment, slowly lowered herself to her knees and cradled his head in her lap. Her eyes were wet, something that she'd thought had been lost to her forever as she kissed his cooling lips.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," she said sadly. "You lost your way. Should I have seen it? Could I have stopped it? I don't know. But wait for me, darling," she said, lifting the tiny wand she'd concealed in her hand to her throat, "I'm coming to you. _Avada Kedavra_."

* * *

The world never fully recovered from the slaughter Harry wreaked upon the British Isles, and as less than eighteen thousand native English-, Irish-, and Scots-men remained on the surface of the planet, within twenty years, the UK was absorbed into France. Harry's entire Cabinet and close associates were executed, save for Tonks, who disappeared, and Hagrid, whose mind had been so broken and controlled by Harry's will that he'd simply lay down, gone to sleep, and never woken up the instant Harry died.

The magical world was outed, and serious efforts were made to regulate and police them. Ironically, the Pureblood sympathisers were all dead to a man within eighteen months due to resistance, and all that remained were the 'mudbloods' and 'blood traitors', who rebuilt, and, under the careful eyes of the mundane governments, began to bring the world into a new, golden age.

* * *

Hermione gasped and sat up abruptly. The stench of brimstone and fire filled her nostrils, and horrid shrieks abused her ears. She felt...'disconnected', insubstantial, but still real, if that made any sense. She looked around her, to behold a wasteland of fire, ash, and lava. "This is-"

"-Hell, my Queen." Hermione stiffened at the sound of Harry's voice, and slowly turned around. His face seemed sharper, his eyes brighter, his grin more unpleasant than she'd ever seen before. "I have to admit," he said calmly, "you surprised me. You killed me. Oh, irony. The one person I came closest to trusting."

"Harry, I-"

"Shut up." Hermione did, and whimpered. "Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. By my dearest Queen. Not very nice at all. But!" he said suddenly, "You have done me a great favour, my dear."

"W-what favour?"

"Why, you've given me exactly what I wanted!" Harry crowed, and now Hermione could see that he was different. His body contained angles and planes that didn't make rational sense. "You've given me an endless playground, a whole new reality to conquer! War unending, unceasing, unbending! And now I have all of eternity to make my desires felt." He leered at Hermione. "Not quite how I was planning on achieving immortality, my dear. But then, you always knew what was best for me, didn't you?" He took four quick strides forward and stood above her. He slowly held out both of his hands to her.

"Well, my Queen? Are you coming?"

There was silence and stillness for what seemed an eternity, and then two small hands placed themselves in his.

"Yes."

Fin


End file.
